


Always coming back home to you

by dancinguniverse



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Fal-tor-pan, K/S Advent Calendar, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 10:25:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8708854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/pseuds/dancinguniverse
Summary: “Have we done this before?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the lovely jouissant for beta reading!   
> This work is part of the [K/S Advent Calendar](http://ksadvent.livejournal.com/), so please go check out the other great works!   
> Title is borrowed from Atmosphere.

Jim dropped another load of wood by the potbelly stove. The farmhouse had been renovated enough times that it didn’t need the wood-burning antique, but Jim liked it anyway. With the snow falling outside, it made him think of old paintings, or holovids from when he was a kid. He was happy to have the atmosphere lending him a hand in his holiday plans. He surveyed the stacked wood and brushed off his hands. It should be enough for the evening.

He glanced down the hall. He’d set Spock to arranging hors d’oeuvres and watching the potatoes. Some of the food had come out of the replicator, but the devilled eggs Jim had mixed that morning by hand, and he’d made Spock help him with the carrots and mashed potatoes. Spock had not, of course, understood why Jim wanted to prepare food the long and arduous way, but he had acquiesced without much of a fight.

The truth was that Jim had a soft spot for the old-fashioned, the antique. He liked traditions. His, or anyone else’s, which was why he’d enjoyed meeting new species on new planets. But this year, he was enjoying retreading familiar ground. He’d always been restless on Earth, whether as a young boy, at the academy, or between missions. But the farmhouse he’d lived in as a child now seemed not chafing, but well-worn, like an old sweater with fraying cuffs.

Now, he watched Spock dutifully mashing potatoes by hand and thought that he would like him here, in Jim’s kitchen, for just a little longer. They would head out again eventually. Neither of them would be content puttering around like old homesteaders forever. But Jim now knew from heart-wrenching experience that even his beloved starship and the dark sheen of space held little thrill or comfort without Spock at his side.

Jim thought that, just as Spock slowly seemed to be easing back into his own memories and self, that Jim was also softening again. _I feel young_ , he’d told Carol, because nothing had truly hurt him since he was a child. But in the aftermath he had felt old, felt stiff to his very soul. With Spock, even this version that sometimes still looked at him askance, he felt the spring returning to his step.

But he knew both of them were still healing in a way. Soon, there would be a new ship, and a new mission. For now, they were all taking a breath. Spock still met regularly with the healers from the Vulcan consulate. Jim coordinated with Starfleet. The rest of the crew spent time with their families, or took on roles at Fleet HQ. And Jim had invited them all to the farmhouse for Christmas.

“I know you don’t all celebrate the holiday,” Jim had told them. “But I always enjoyed it, and it’s a tradition best celebrated with family. I hope you all know that you are far more than just my crew. Perhaps that word says just as much, but—I would be honored if you would join me.”

“Could have picked someplace warm,” Bones had griped to him over the comm the night before, apparently having checked the weather forecast.

Jim had laughed at him, warm in front of another fire, Spock pulled up close enough to the stove to catch sparks, reading through some article on his PADD. “Uhura’s coming from a lot warmer, and she hasn’t complained yet. Wearing a sweater won’t kill you.”

“If I get lost in the snow, it’s on your conscience.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Now, Jim glanced again at the snow falling thickly outside the window panes, and smiled at the memory.

He breezed into the kitchen. “How’s the food coming?” he asked. Spock was standing over a bowl of steaming potatoes, so at least those were progressing. He pulled open the oven, checking on the pies.

“Jim.”

Jim studied the still pale crusts critically. _A few more minutes,_ he thought, and closed the oven door again. Then he took in the pensive look on Spock’s face, more serious than mashing potatoes would seem to deserve. “What is it?” he asked.

Spock’s eyebrows were drawn in, a look he reserved for particularly thorny problems, which lately were usually memories clawing their way to the surface, misplaced from the fal-tor-pan and buzzing to be set properly in order. Jim waited patiently.

“Have we done this before?” he asked after some reflection.

Jim shifted pots on the counter, moving a few to the washer to make room for the pies’ eventual presentation while he thought. “Which part?”

“I am not sure,” Spock admitted. “Only, this seems familiar.”  

Jim considered again. “I like Christmas,” he offered, though he had said this much already, explaining his invitation to the whole crew. “I attended most of the Enterprise’s holiday parties regardless. But I held more private parties a few times as well, especially for you and Doctor McCoy.”

“Because we were your friends?” Spock tested, and Jim nodded at him, accustomed by now to this particular memory game. Spock resumed smashing the bowl of potatoes, though he was clearly still thinking. “What did these parties entail?” he asked.

Jim shrugged. Many of them were years gone by. He wasn’t sure how many of them he could swear to, or which years they’d taken place. “A nice meal, some drinks for Bones and me. Maybe a few gifts.” He smiles. “One year, I got you a crystal from Bokar III. Do you remember?”

Spock stared at him for a moment, and as it dragged out, Jim felt his cheer fade. One more missing piece, from what had once been a life shared. Then Spock tilted his head. “Tectonite,” he pronounced. “When it receives any kinetic force, even a light touch, it changes color. A curio, but a pleasing one.”

Jim felt his shoulders ease. “Yes.”

“I am sure it was lost with the rest of the ship.”

“As you said,” Jim shrugged, not wanting to picture the flaming wreck of his ship again. “It was a trinket, nothing more.” He watched Spock’s face as he digested this information, looking dissatisfied. “It’s not the object that was important,” Jim explained. “I gave it because I thought you might enjoy it. That you remember it at all— _that_ is important to me.”

Spock inclined his head, an acknowledgement, but his expression didn’t change. “Forgive me,” Spock said. “That is not the memory at question.” He glanced down at the bowl in his hands. “Did we prepare food often?”

“Often?” Jim asked, surprised. “No, I wouldn’t say that. Mostly we used the replicators on ship.” He cast about in his own memories, searching for a line. Perhaps some other shore leave? Perhaps some other setting entirely? “Did you prepare food on Vulcan by hand?”

“Occasionally,” Spock answered, though he was clearly deep in thought. “That is not it either.” He shook his head once, sharply, a frustrated gesture, and looking up at Jim. “May I share the thought with you? It is not so much confused as without context. I would appreciate your aid.”

Jim felt his throat tighten, as it always did when Spock used words where once he would have dropped a thought. The bond remained, but muted. Spock crept back into his thoughts sometimes now. But he was still sorting through his own mind, realigning thoughts and memories, and he kept a rigid control over the passageways where Jim had once wandered freely. The healers had assured them such variance was normal, even without the trauma of death and rejoining.

“Always,” he said aloud. Then he smiled when Spock carefully wiped his hands free of potatoes before reaching for him. Was this the thrill of homemaking? He understood, suddenly, what a different, more sedentary life might have provided them. Spock, missing the humor in clean and dirty hands, raised an eyebrow before grasping Jim’s face, and the familiar tolerance at Jim’s humor suddenly cheered Jim more than the touch of the mind meld itself, which was careful where once it had been as natural as breathing.

At least Spock didn’t need the words spoken aloud, though Jim felt them echo through both their minds as they joined together. There was the usual jumble of two minds aligning, the feeling of Spock correcting his stance, his breathing, and Jim knew it was really his thoughts he was centering. And then Spock showed him the memory that was niggling at him.

It had indeed been a shore leave. Jim had forgotten the day entirely, buried in history as it was. But Spock’s flicker of a memory called his own forth, and they amplified each other until the recollection was as clear as if it had happened yesterday, instead of years past, back during their first five-year mission.

It hadn’t been a long vacation. A simple and single night of shore leave, in fact, while the Enterprise picked up some supplies. Jim and Spock had spent the evening planetside, and Jim had, on impulse, picked out food at one of the markets, brought it back to their room for the night.

“She said it’s good on the grill, Spock, and look: We’ve got a grill,” Jim had said. In his own memory, it was affected nonchalance. He wasn’t sure about the tube-shaped gourd or the starchy beans, but Spock had been dubious about both the efficiency of cooking themselves and of Jim’s culinary abilities, and Jim had figured that bravado was the best strategy for convincing him otherwise. If the meal didn’t turn out, they could laugh at their efforts—Jim would laugh, Spock would fix him with that particular look, eyebrow raised—and go out anyway.  

He was surprised at the tenderness suffusing Spock’s version of the memory. He had been far more trusting in his captain’s culinary skills than Jim had realized, pleased to spend the evening together, and warmed by Jim’s reckless but detailed innovation. Fleshed out, now, by Jim’s details to jog the rest of it back into place, Jim saw that before Khan and the fal-tor-pan, Spock had treasured the memory, bringing it to mind often and fondly as a favorite of their time together, and Jim felt Spock remember the familiarity of it as well. There was a muted flash of anger, quickly tempered, and Spock released the meld.

Jim opened his eyes, and Spock regarded him with his usual opaque gaze. “I’m sorry,” Jim said after he had settled his own thoughts back into place. “It was a beautiful night. It was just a long time ago.”

Spock reached out, brushing their fingers together. “I am not frustrated with you,” he said, and Jim knew that was true. “The healers on Vulcan prioritized my recovery in typically Vulcan fashion. They had no other frame of reference,” he allowed, “and barely that, of course. I was the first in a long time to undergo the process. Still, I am only half Vulcan, and the other half has been less well-served by their ministrations.” He studied their joined hands, and then met Jim’s eyes again. “I am sorry, my t’hy’la, for all of the things I have forgotten.”

Jim smiled, and if it was sad, then at least it was an emotion shared. “That’s not your fault, and not logical, Mr. Spock.”

Spock broke away to reapply himself to the mashed potatoes, and Jim caught the wry tone in his voice. “Then perhaps I am recouping my human nature more quickly than anticipated.”

Jim stepped up behind him. “We should cook together more often,” he said, fitting his hand to Spock’s side in a very human gesture.

“I would be amenable to that,” Spock agreed, and Jim was wondering what else he might be amenable to when the door chime sounded. Jim glanced at the counter display to see Bones and Scotty on the front step, bearing their own covered dishes of food.

“Party’s here,” Jim noted, and Spock held out his bowl for inspection. Jim dipped a finger into the potatoes and stuck it in his mouth to test.

“That is unsanitary,” Spock told him, and Jim grinned.

“Who’s the cook?” He headed for the door, calling over his shoulder. “And they need more butter.”  


End file.
